| With no sign of the Iraq insurgency ending soon, the Army has again raised its goal for replacing regular Humvee utility vehicles in Iraq with armoured Humvees, the Army's top civilian official said. The extra protection is needed to shield soldiers from the insurgents' weapon of choice, the roadside bomb, as well as other small arms that soldiers are vulnerable to in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. Les Brownlee, the acting secretary of the Army, said in an Associated Press interview on Friday that the Army recently doubled its requirement for 'up-armoured' Humvees in Iraq from 4,000 to 8,000. Brownlee said that he believed the Army could meet the goal of having 8,000 armoured Humvees in Iraq by March 2005. Brownlee said the army also is adding armour to its truck fleet because soldiers in supply convoys are often attacked by insurgents. "No one ever anticipated we'd be up-armouring our truck fleet," he said. "Nobody anticipated that we'd have to do that." |